Adela Cepeda stepped adroitly along her path to become one of the city's most prominent Latina businesswomen. But she walked it on her own, rather than as part of the power couple she and her husband were once well on their way to becoming. Cepeda, an immigrant from Colombia who was raised in New York, moved to Chicago in 1981 to be with her husband, Albert Maule. She met him at Harvard University, and though he grew up in Connecticut, his family's Windy City ties ran deep. His...

Wil Lewis and his wife had lived in Chicago for about a year and had moved about two weeks ago to a home on Greenview Avenue in Rogers Park, a neighborhood they considered "safe enough," his family said. The 28-year-old from Wisconsin, a photographer by trade, was scheduled to start a new job Monday, a prospect he was "very excited" about, family said. But, about 3:20 p.m. Saturday afternoon, that all changed. Lewis was on a North Side street when a man walked up to him and...

DEAR JOYCE: You recently gave some very good answers to what job seekers being interviewed can say when asked why they have been out of work for so long. Can you give sample answers for when an interviewer asks why a person wants the job? -- J.G.L. A reader interviewing for an office cleaner's job recently asked me how to answer a similar question: "Why do you need the job?" Other than a suspicion that the interviewer is trying to find out how desperate you are and how cheaply you can be...

(Reuters) - Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal is in no mood to take a break after leading his country to third place at the World Cup on Saturday, starting work with new employers Manchester United on Wednesday, he told Dutch NOS television. Van Gaal is scheduled to return home with the Dutch squad on Sunday after their 3-0 win over Brazil in the third place playoff match in Brasilia and will embark on his next venture after taking just two days off. "That is no problem...

My 19-year-old daughter has a somewhat unusual job. And while I don't mind telling people about it, I probably wouldn't describe it the way my older daughter did to explain why her younger sister was absent from a holiday dinner. "She's taking her clothes off for money," she said helpfully. Strictly speaking, yes. My daughter is indeed paid for being nude. But take your mind out of the gutter and your finger off the speed-dial to the police: She works as an...

DEAR JOYCE: My daughter and son are in high school and it will soon be time for them to anticipate their future careers. What are some of tomorrow's good jobs and which ones are likely to hit the dustbin? -- P.H. As technology continues to fire away at work as we know it, routine and mundane tasks of many jobs will disappear. There's no shortage of long-term jobs forecasts, as illustrated by one made last year by two University of Oxford professors, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne:...

As a result of trickle-down economics and Wall Street greed, millions of America's best jobs have gone up in smoke over the last three decades. It's about time that we start calling job creators what they really are: job cremators. --Rick Singer, Skokie

In the days after he started work as a police officer in a small McHenry County village, Ryszard Kopacz was fired, investigated by the state police, arrested and charged with several felonies. Kopacz had been on the job less than a week when a resident of Richmond, a village of about 2,000 near the Wisconsin border, complained to the department that the new hire went door to door in uniform on the night of July 4, asking people for prescription narcotics, authorities...

If I walked off my job, refusing to do the work that I was hired to do, I would be fired. At the least, I would not be paid for my unproductive time. We continue to pay the House Republicans in spite of the fact that they are refusing to do the job that they have been elected to do. They should take a stand, do their job and have some respect for the American people. That is what they have been hired to do. - Sheila O'Grady, Chicago

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is to set out proposals to force foreign buyers of key UK companies to make binding commitments to secure jobs and research budgets, Sky News reported on Saturday. Business Secretary Vince Cable is expected to announce the plans shortly to prevent the erosion of Britain's knowledge base, it added. Sky said it understood Cable wants to strengthen the powers of the Takeover Panel, which oversees mergers and takeovers involving British...

Air controllers snoozing on the job means there's nothing to do. That's right, there are no planes in the area to guide for hours on end! Any pilot worth his or her salt can land a plane without a controller giving instructions. In fact, smaller airports do not have a tower to regulate and guide planes. You have to look out the windshield for traffic, and at night the planes are to have their lights on and flashing. On the plus side, the controllers will be well-rested when they have something to do. ...

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari should carry on because of his good work in the job even though the hosts were humiliated by Germany in the World Cup semi-finals, a Brazilian federation official said on Friday. "To me, he stays," the president-elect of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) Marco Polo Del Nero told the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper in an interview. "What happened was a tactical error. That was the problem. But we all make mistakes. It...

Attending a job fair can be unnerving. You know you need to impress recruiters and you know you need to do it quickly. If you take a casual approach to that initial interview at a company's booth, you may be sealing your fate. After all, if you're not taking advantage of an opportunity to impress at a job fair, you can be sure that someone else will. Job seekers should treat a job fair interview as if it's their one and only chance to sell themselves to the employer. Here are 10 tips to...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When financial adviser Mike Gegen made the final decision to leave his job at RBC Capital Markets to move to Baird Financial Group, he resigned on May 23, the Friday morning before the three-day Memorial Day weekend, and within one hour, he was on the phone persuading clients to move with him. Gegen, who managed $100 million in client assets at RBC Capital Markets, the investment banking arm of the Royal Bank of Canada, found...

Companies covet well-rounded employees - those who can communicate effectively and write well, but also navigate technology and demonstrate business acumen. In particular, young people looking for their first jobs benefit from having a broad range of aptitudes, so the challenge is being both skilled and well rounded at the same time. "The more entry-level a job is, the more likely it is that employers will be able to choose from multiple, highly qualified candidates,"...

TOKYO/SYDNEY (Reuters) - The dollar traded around one-week lows against a basket of major currencies on Thursday, coming under pressure after minutes of the Federal Reserve's June meeting gave no clear indication about the timing of any interest rate rise. The Australian dollar, meanwhile, slipped after a rise in the country's jobless rate raised concern about its stalled economy and stoked expectations that interest rates may remain on hold for months to come. The...

Regarding "Teacher's suicide stuns school, spurs colleagues to speak out" (News, Jan. 1): I feel deep sympathy for Mary Thorson, a grammar school gym teacher who committed suicide on Thanksgiving, as well as for her parents and other survivors who may have loved her. To die at 32, especially by one's own hand, is a terrible tragedy. But for others to blame it on Thorson's troubles on the job, which Thorson mentioned in her suicide note, is sheer foolishness. Surely Thorson suffered many problems,...

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp MSFT.O Chief Executive Satya Nadella deferred any comment on widely expected job cuts at the software company on Thursday, after circulating a memo to employees promising to "flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes. " Nadella said he would address detailed organizational and financial issues for the company's new financial year, which started at the beginning of this month, when Microsoft reports quarterly earnings on July...

Despite taking office in the middle of unprecedented economic meltdown, fiscal disaster and a toxic a political environment, Gov. Pat Quinn has accomplished more in 20 months as governor than Bill Brady has in 16 years in the legislature. Quinn's initiative brought Illinois its first meaningful campaign finance and pension reform in decades, a long-overdue capital bill, rapid-response nursing home reform and truly visionary advances in renewable energy, green jobs technology and high-speed rail.

Highwood City Manager Scott Hartman is leaving Highwood next month to become the new deputy county administrator for McHenry County. In a recent interview, Hartman said the county job was better for his family and closer to his Crystal Lake home. But Hartman, hired in October 2011, said it was still a difficult decision considering some of the progress made in Highwood in recent years, citing recent community development and improved financial stability as examples. "I'm...